Ragnarok - Again, Already?
by SelkieShore
Summary: It's the end of the world (maybe) and Axl and Anders are heading into it with problems still unresolved between them. Which means that someone is about to get hurt. But cause and effect can do funny things when you're dealing with immortality... Sometimes you get the end before the beginning. Anders whump.


_This is my first Almighty Johnsons fic. In fact I'm still only partway through Series 3 - so it's also very definitely an AU! I just couldn't hold off any longer writing for these wonderful characters..._

_The "fragmentary" Idunn legend referenced near the beginning appears in just one of my Norse mythology sources, "Viking Mythology" by John Grant (pub. Apple Press, appropriately enough, 1990). Once I discovered it, of course I couldn't not use it! Anders is a little out of character in places here - blame Bragi - and I've also side-lined Helen in order to big up him and Gaia, so apologies to any Helen fans out there._

_Please review... Reviews are like mead to wet the skald's whistle_ :o)

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**Chapter 1 : How d'You Like Them Apples?**

Idunn. Goddess of the Spring, and wife to the god Bragi. She was the keeper of the golden apples from which the gods derived their immortality, and without her, though it took centuries, Asgard would fall. Idunn herself was the sun's warmth on a cold morning, as precious and full of hope as the first crocus lighting up the snow. She was gentle and refreshing like the spring rain, and only a fool would have mistaken that gentleness as being meek.

But fools there were, and are. On at least one occasion she was abducted by the giants, who seem to have been surprised that they could not then force this sweet girl to yield - neither her apples, nor anything else. And some bards tells fragments of a darker story still about Idunn. For they say the goddess of the Spring became imprisoned in the Norsemen's frozen Hell, and the gods who sought to rescue her found only her cold body, white and silent in enchanted sleep. Then Bragi told his friends and brothers to leave. He wrapped her in furs and blankets, and lying close beside her tried to warm her in his arms.

But Idunn never woke. And no-one nowadays remembers how the story ends.

**oOo**

"Are you going to apologise?" growls Mike, and it's a word Bragi grapples with - he who uses words as readily as this builder brother of his would use a hammer, or a saw. Apology. Regret? The coiled resentment stirs inside him, flickering its tongue.

Does he regret that Fate made the other bloke in this his own kid brother? Yes! And wasn't he trying to say as much when that kid brother hurled him across the room? Anders nearly died. The saying, "What more do you want - blood?" has never been more appropriate.

But is he sorry... about her? That she came back? That for a few perfect days and nights near the end of Time in Auckland, they were together again, Bragi and Idunn, as they were always meant to be: Bragi's whole being alive with harp-song and the apple blossom springing from the trees?

And now she's gone. The mortal vessels defiling everything as always with their petty squabbles. Blood on the floor. Axl's chubby faced girl-friend pushing past him and out of the door, Idunn's tears still damp on his pillow. He must have lost and found and loved her a dozen times down the centuries - and always it ends the same way, with him shouting her name unanswered in the frozen dark.

But at least, this time, he knows she's alive. At least he'll always have Auckland, and the knowledge that somewhere in Middle Earth this morning, the goddess of Spring is walking in sunlit orchards.

He would have covered the North Island in trees for her, had she stayed.

And they want him to say he wishes it never happened?

"Never."

**oOo**

"Come on, Anders, wake up."

Ty didn't so much hate what he was doing : He loathed it, not just because he knew his brother needed the sleep. Anders was actually crying, muttering distractedly in broken fragments of Old Norse, and Ty knew all about _that_ kind of nightmare himself. Still, there was something in this simple act of shaking Anders awake which he found deeply disturbing - and after a moment he knew what it was.

Mike's Bar. The situation was way too similar to those drawn-out seconds there in the rubble, when Ty was tapping the side of his brother's face with one hand, pressing a towel to his slashed throat with the other. Even the words were echoes of the ones he'd used then. "Anders - open your eyes, Bro."

It was ridiculous how relieved he felt when Anders did exactly that.

"You were dreaming," said Ty.

Anders groaned. "Yes I was. And she had warmer hands than you. What the fuck are you doing in my apartment?"

Anders Johnson, God of Poetry.

"It's good to see you, too." Ty flung back the duvet, earning an indignant squawk. He was nervous, afraid even, and the room was like a chill-cabinet. "It's today. Ragnarok."

"You mean it's today that Mike and Axl are dragging us to some half-arsed stand-off in the woods with Colin and a horde of bastard frost giants, so we can demand they stop all this weird shit that's been going on?" Anders was still complaining as he levered himself off the bed and padded naked into his sitting room. An empty vodka bottle clinked softly against the chair-leg, nudged in passing by his bare foot. "Even if that does trigger the end of the world, can you give me one good reason why I can't face it lying drunk in bed?"

"Stop whining, Anders," said Mike.

Because in fact there were four such reasons, with Ty, and the remaining three of them were just now infesting his kitchen.

"Wonderful." The breakfast bar was covered in weapons. Mike stood behind one of the few clear spaces, pouring cloudy liquid from a carton into a line-up of Anders' wine glasses, while Axl perched awkwardly on a bar-stool with his sword across his knees and stared steadfastly in the opposite direction, refusing even to look at his rumpled middle brother. Anders ignored the pair of them anyway, instead pointing an accusatory finger at the last Johnson in the jigsaw, the one seated cross-legged on the sofa beneath a cloud of perfumed smoke. "I blame you for this, Grandpa. I mean, really? The end of the world?"

"The end of this world." Olaf gestured expansively with the hand which held the joint. "This end of the world. Who knows? Circles, Boy. Jormungandr bites on the end of his own tail. Drink your juice."

"And for fuck's sake put your pants on," suggested Mike. Disgust just edged out the concern from his voice, because really Anders looked like a wreck. Ty had said he was see-sawing between vodka to silence the gods in his dreams, coke in a failed attempt not to fall asleep in the first place - and Mike could believe it. The trouble was that Anders had never been an easy person for Mike to sympathise with.

Olaf shook his head. "Pants later. Juice first. Gaia sent it." He waved aside the obvious question. "Through Ingrid. I don't know where she is. That's not important now. What matters is that we are going into battle, and the apples are what make us immortal. They will protect you." He thought about that for a moment. "They will protect Bragi. Anders can still get diced up like a pizza topping."

"I don't know, Grandpa." Ty had helped himself to one of the glasses, which immediately began to crackle with frost. He eyed the now empty carton sceptically: Ty saw a lot of juice cartons. "This is Pak'n Save own brand. It's not exactly mystical, is it?"

"Also not important. They're apples, touched by Idunn."

"Oh. Her." Anders hoisted himself onto the empty bar stool and rested his chin on his arms. Above his head the conversation continued, Mike trying to take control now, laying out his plans for how he would confront Loki:

"... Thor and the goddesses are joining us on the way. When we meet Colin, Thor and Michelle will fan out on each side - Michelle's a good shot - and cover the giants. That means Ingrid will have to take charge of Yggdrasil... "

It all seemed spectacularly pointless as far as Anders was concerned. He stared listlessly at the glass of apple juice which Ty shoved his way, wondering how long he could keep it down. He felt like shit - which was strange, considering how drunk he still was, but not unusual. Whatever plans he'd had for today - and getting wasted seemed like a prime one - picking a fight with the frost giants was in no way in his top ten...

"Idunn," he said softly, almost wistfully, reaching out a finger to one of the beads of condensation Ty's touch had left on the glass. Only Axl caught the bitter-sweet smile, so unlike Anders' own smile, which quirked the corner of his mouth like Spring sunshine as the touch became a caress, fingers idly stroking the side of the glass. "How d'you like them apples?" said Anders in a small, sad murmur beneath his breath.

"No!" Axl crashed to his feet.

The others looked up, shocked, to see their youngest brother jabbing the All-Father's sword within inches of Anders' bemused face.

"He doesn't speak her name!" Axl bellowed. "He doesn't - do that, okay? And - and he doesn't get to drink her juice! That's just - he just doesn't!"

The sword jerked of its own accord, Axl's boyish face twisted dark and threatening and somehow very much older above it. It was a bright morning, but for one brief moment, perhaps the beat of a raven's wing, it was if the sun had gone in. To his brothers, staring, it looked in that flicker of time as if Axl had lost an eye...

"Whoa..." said Olaf. Nobody heard him.

"Keep your stupid juice, Bro!" It was Anders' turn to flare up. "I hate apples."

"Like hell you do, you loved those apple mart- oh," from Ty. "Sorry."

- And Mike smacked his palm flat and final onto the counter-top: daylight crashing back into the room.

"Axl - She's his wife! You- " he rounded on Anders, " -shut the fuck up. And Axl... " He took a deep breath, both hands raised. Seriously, could they hear themselves? Like a bunch of bickering kids... _Still_. "I know this is hard for you. Believe me, I _know_. But... this is just fruit juice, okay? ... And yeah, maybe weird immortality god medicine. Which is why you need to calm down, Bro. Because you may be Odin, but I'm your big brother, and his, and I am not letting you send him into fucking _Ragnarok_ without all the help he can get."

Nobody spoke. Olaf was nodding wisely if awkwardly, leaning backwards to watch them over the back of the sofa with the smoke trickling from his nose. Ty just looked worried, the forgotten juice carton slowly casing itself in ice in his hand. This was serious, if Mike was taking Anders' side over Axl's... maybe it really was the end of the world.

Maybe people could die here.

Then Axl lowered the sword. "... Yeah. Alright. I'm... yeah." He glared at Anders. "But - just drink it, okay? Nothing... suggestive. Like, no tongues or slurping or shit."

Anders shrugged.

"Oh for fuck's sake," Mike had had enough. He turned to Ty, unconsciously tugging his jacket closer about him. "Can you pick up Ingrid and the stick in your van? Stacey had better stay back too, to protect them... "

So they were back on their Council of War now, and Anders let his head sink down again onto his arms and waited for them to get on with it. It felt strangely... okay, Mike sticking up for him, for once. Not okay enough to silence the traitorous thought that maybe the end of world wasn't such a bad idea after all.

On the counter in front of him the glass of apple juice smelled of every good and wholesome thing he had ever tasted. And he knew that if he so much as took a sip of it he would be very sick indeed.

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**Author's note.** _ So what did you think, should I continue?_


End file.
